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You know what’s great? Traveling with a Dutch passport on the day after a glorious orange victory. I can highly recommend it. At customs, at check-in, on board, whereever I went I was congratulated like I was Van Persie in person.
Watching the game in an Egyptian bar was a joy, with everybody cheering for Holland and the entire staff congratulating us each time we scored. But the morning after was even better.
‘You’re from the Netherlands? Wow, what a night!’ I even got a seat with extra leg room. Courtesy of our boys in orange.
Once landed in the Netherlands, it seemed like the whole country popped some pills. Smiling faces, people talking to each other on the street: the victory seems to have done miracles for our Gross National Mood. Last week, it was ‘seeing is believing’, and ‘can’t possible work, that new style of play’. But now I even hear the biggest sceptic of the neigbourhood saying Van Gaal was quite right with his 5-3-2.
Was the miracle of Salvador a turning point in our rich history of pessimism, like Orangologist David Winner predicted? I surely hope so. Because let’s be honoust: after all the Moroccan debates, Black-Pete debates and other misery aren’t we ready for some happy we-feeling? According to some experts that will even make us money. So who says less less less?
I wonder whether the Swiss are equally proud of their lads. Recently, a majority of the population voted for stricter immigration laws. With those new laws, there would only be about three players left.
And what about Marine le Pen, would she have watched France play on Sunday? Or maybe these weren’t ‘her boys’, who beat Honduras with 3-0. Benzema, Pogba and Lloris, now that’s what I call a National Front.
‘We’ were ‘we’ before Brazil. ‘Those immigrants’ were ‘our boys’ all along. But, to quote our dear Johan, ‘you only see it when you get it.’